Gill took to Instagram on Tuesday to share her thoughts on a news report about a man in Gujranwala who allegedly assaulted his pregnant wife after an ultrasound report revealed the couple were expecting a daughter.

“To educate all such men out there, a child’s biological sex is determined by the father’s sperm, not the mother,” Gill wrote.

The actor went on to suggest that “basic manners, empathy, humanity and morality” should be a mandatory part of curriculum in schools.

“Because clearly, something is failing us. I don’t know whether it’s our legal system, our society, our upbringing or a combination of all but these horrendous acts continue to happen,” she continued, before pointing out religious teachings, if interpreted correctly, could also help nurture children, so they grow up to be compassionate.

The incident Gill referred to took place on September 27. Gujranwala police have arrested the man accused of assaulting his pregnant wife in the WAPDA Town area. The case has been registered under sections 337 (shajjah) and 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

According to the FIR, the accused, Tayyab Mannan, had been coercing his wife, who is five months pregnant, to get an abortion because he wasn’t happy about the possibility of having a second daughter, which was indicated in an ultrasound.

The FIR claims that during a fight over the same issue, Mannan beat up his wife so badly that had to be taken to Gujranwala Civil Hospital for treatment.

In a video circulating on social media, the woman revealed details about the incident and how her husband’s anger over having a second daughter turned into violence.

“We need to shape minds from a young age so that cruelty is never normalised, violence is never mistaken for authority, and another human being’s dignity is never considered negotiable,” Gill wrote in her story, that features the video.

Going back to the reported incident, the actor, who is known for being vocal about women’s and animal’s rights, reiterated her outrage.

“A woman being beaten for carrying a daughter? Astaghfirullah,” she said, adding the mother is not responsible for “choosing the sex of that child”.

Gill, who is know for her vocal support for women’s rights, touched upon an important issue that, to this day, plagues women in South Asia. Family pressure to produce male heirs is a deeply entrenched cultural norm. It’s rooted in and driven by patriarchal social structures as well as a false sense of economic security.

This harmful belief devalues the lives of women and in many cases endangers their lives as well. In 2011, several United Nations agencies, including the World Health Organisation, released a joint statement to address this issue, stating ‘son preference’ perpetuates discrimination and violates women’s rights.

Add to this a severe lack of sex education, and you get a society where women not only suffer abuse for something they have absolutely no control over but also wrongly get blamed for it.

Gill is right to call out systemic issues that contribute to prenatal violence against women. “We desperately need to do better. As parents. As schools. As communities. As a society. Period,” she said.

With additional reporting by Iqbal Mirza

In a lengthy statement, Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten confirmed that his office would present the case against seven alleged perpetrators to a grand jury for a possible indictment.

He also sought to explain why prosecutors did not pursue criminal charges two years ago, saying that the lawsuit’s allegations differed from the alleged victim’s original account in 2024. The woman, who prosecutors have not named, gave a statement to campus police at the time, according to Van Houten, that “described her drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious and consensual”.

The alleged victim’s lawyer, Thomas Giuffra, did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for a comment. He told CNN in a statement that the police report was “not materially different” from the civil lawsuit’s claims and criticised the district attorney’s office for not pursuing a more thorough investigation sooner, the network reported.

The lawsuit, filed against the seven Chi Phi fraternity members, Cornell University and several other defendants, asserted that the woman, then a 20-year-old student at Cornell, was “plied with alcohol and drugs to the point of intoxication” by fraternity members, leaving her unable to consent before she was sexually assaulted.

Members of the fraternity used a Snapchat group chat to encourage others to join in, according to the lawsuit, which included a photo of some messages as well as details about the alleged assault itself.

In a statement, a Cornell spokesperson said the school supports Van Houten’s decision and noted that the chapter of Chi Phi involved in the case has remained barred from campus since 2024. Cornell previously conducted an investigation into the allegations that resulted in “a range of sanctions, which included expulsions and suspensions from Cornell”.

“Any suggestion that the university did not impose consequential punishments for those involved is false,” said the spokesperson, Kyle Kimball.

It was not immediately clear if all of the fraternity members named in the lawsuit have legal representation. Jeremy Saland, a defence lawyer who represents one of the members, said in a statement that his client had done nothing more than respond to the chat with an immature comment and that his client “welcomes any further investigation by the district attorney”.

In the US, fraternities are college-based clubs for male students, often sharing a house together. The national Chi Phi fraternity, which was founded more than two centuries ago, did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

The case has received national attention following the alleged victim’s lawsuit and the announcement the case would be reopened. Several celebrities, including actor Florence Pugh, and US lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have spoken out about it.

On campus there is a mix of shock and outrage along with “a humongous wave of solidarity” from people across the US, Sophia Dasser, editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, The Cornell Daily Sun, told the BBC.

Her newspaper published the names of the men named in the lawsuit and called for an independent, third-party review of the reporting and resolution processes.

“Much of the frustration, in my opinion, does stem from how little students really were told over the last two years regarding this case and how opaque the Title IX process — which bars sex discrimination in schools that receive funding from the federal government, including most universities — is,” Dasser said.

She said that other universities publicise anonymous outcome, sanction and process results of sexual assaults on campus, but Cornell University does not.

The final season of the show, which debuted in 2004, has had a 161-episode run over its eight seasons so far. The final series will begin streaming on JioHotstar from October 14.

The show hosted some of India’s biggest stars across Bollywood and sports, with Johar asking them questions about friendships, romances, marriages and whatever else goes on in their world.

The conversations that followed had a knack for going viral — sometimes for the wrong reasons.

“Koffee With Karan has been such a large part of my identity in the entertainment industry… I still can’t believe it’s been 22 years and now this will be my ninth season,” Variety quoted Johar saying.

He said he had a rewarding experience hosting the show, but the time had come to focus on other pursuits. “I want to spend the next decade of my life directing more movies… telling many more stories… so with a heavy heart I am making this season my last,” the director said.

The show started off very strong with Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol as guests on the inaugural episode. The first season also saw Amitabh Bachchan, his son Abhishek, Aishwarya Rai and filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali sit on the show’s Koffee Kouch.

It was that same star power that propelled its future seasons, with Kajol and Kareena Kapoor being two of the most frequent guests.

Naturally, the show had its share of controversies too, with one episode in 2019 being taken off the Hotstar streaming platform after cricketer Hardik Pandya made derogatory remarks about women.

Both Pandiya and KL Rahul — who was also on the Kouch that day — were briefly suspended from the national team over the incident.

In 2022, the host convinced fans the show was ending with a post that said it would “not be returning”. He clarified hours later that it was no longer going to air on TV and would now stream on Hotstar.

However, it seems this next season will be his last hurrah, with Johar saying, “This will be the last time I will be on a couch that has been synonymous with conversations, candour and well… controversies… The decision is emotional and personal to me… But I am hoping the legacy of love the show has given me continues to brew in people’s hearts.”

His remarks came in a video posted to his Instagram account on Wednesday in which he vented his frustration at what he described as a daily disregard for basic courtesy and road safety outside school gates.

In the clip, Ahmed takes aim at those who, in his view, treat school runs as a licence to ignore everyone else on the road.

“I have an important question: while picking and dropping children off at school, why do you people take the wrong way? I mean, how much fuel are you able to save? Rs50? Rs100? But have you ever wondered what your child is learning from this sort of conduct?” Ahmed asked.

“I mean, school is where learning starts for children and you’re showing them that it’s okay to flout traffic rules. You cause traffic jams and people get worried,” he added.

However, in the middle of his rant, Ahmed explicitly highlighted women as the chief offenders, suggesting they are disproportionately responsible for the chaos he describes.

“Here, I’ll specifically request women drivers who drive on the wrong side of the road. Nobody even tries to question them, because you can’t get into a fight with a woman,” the actor said.

Now, this is a claim that’s not only unhelpful but also plainly unfair.

The school run is a shared burden with men and women both part of the daily scramble. To frame the issue around women is to blatantly ignore that reality and to risk turning a legitimate road safety concern into a gendered attack.

Ahmed’s criticism also overlooks the fact that, in many households, it is women who shoulder the bulk of childcare responsibilities — often while juggling work — precisely because of unequal expectations that society has been slow to address.

Blaming women, in particular, for the consequences of that imbalance adds to the unfairness, rather than addressing it.

That said, it would be a mistake to dismiss the substance of the broader issue Ahmed raised. The morning drop-off genuinely is a daily test of patience and safety and the frustration the actor voiced is one shared by countless parents, teachers and residents who witness the same scenes every week.

“Please reflect on your conduct and think about what your child is learning from you,” Ahmed requested towards the end of his video.

Speaking at the launch of Rabia Anum’s new salon in Karachi, Ansari said she had been busy with engagements abroad but was now back in Pakistan and looking forward to working on three projects: two drama serials and a film.

The actor said she was due to start shooting for “Fahad [Mustafa]’s film” in December. She also said that while the cast has not been finalised, she knows that comedian Sohail Ahmed — better known by his stage name Azizi — will be part of the project.

“The serials,” she said, “one will start shooting in October, the other in November. I will be staying here now.”

The actor confirmed these would be her first projects after she starred in the drama Shaidai earlier this year.

When asked about her vocal positions on social issues and whether she gets trolled over the internet for them, Ansari said, “Actually, I think I speak about relevant things mostly, the mishappenings [in society].”

She recalled speaking out about the Mir Raza and Mustafa Amir cases, saying, “When these things get suffocating, I say something and I don’t think I say anything that would hurt somebody… I don’t get trolled.”

The actor condemned the way fashion designer Parishae Adnan was treated on a TV show hosted by Nadia Khan last week. She said, “It wasn’t right, the girl is very talented, the focus should have been on her achievement.”

Adnan, who recently closed a show held during New York Fashion Week with her Second Skin collection, was grilled by the host over the clothes she wears to the gym and how her parents were okay with her choices.

Ansari said the designer was “unique” in her work and in her style, and that was her personal matter. The actor said Khan was like a daughter to her and she can say these things to her whenever they see each other.

Ansari said Khan was trolled on the internet for the show, “which should be limited”. She said people sometimes say things in the flow of conversation and there had to be a limit to what trolls can do.

Another bone she had to pick was with online ‘critics’. “Everyone has become a critic, whether they know dramas or not, whether they are from the field or not, anyone with two mics can start a podcast and he criticises everyone.

“Anyone can say anything about anybody,” she said.

“Iss umar mein yeh sab (doing this at this age)?“ asked one troll, while others weighed in on how the unborn baby deserved “younger, more energetic” parents while some prophesied that Khan wouldn’t live long enough to see her baby have babies.

Media coverage has been equally atrocious, with one channel featuring “medical specialists” who referred to Khan as an “old woman”. 

We don’t judge older dads

Of course, such a sexist, ageist response is not a uniquely Pakistani phenomenon. Anne Hathaway was picked apart online after announcing she was pregnant at 43. Kourtney Kardashian, pregnant at 44, and Naomi Campbell, who became a mother at 50 through surrogacy, were also criticised heavily online.

I personally am a fan of how Sienna Miller handled criticism around her pregnancy announcement at 43. When people called her “irresponsible,” she hit back saying: “There’s a whole load of noise and people have a lot to say, and it’s incredibly gendered and unbelievably misogynistic and anti-feminist. If your body is capable of it, have the baby”. She went on to say, “We don’t judge men who are having kids in their 80s. Why on earth is there any sort of narrative?”

Miller was, of course, referring to a host of celebrity dads such as Al Pacino, who became a father at 83, and Robert De Niro, who welcomed a child at 79. The public’s response to these literal senior citizens joining the new dad club was mostly eye rolling and jokes about their virility with some commending them for still having “it”.

There was certainly no online mob with pitchforks accusing these men of behaving irresponsibly by bringing into the world a child they probably won’t see graduate college.

You don’t have to be a celebrity to have your age become the central part of your pregnancy journey. The women I spoke to for this story have been on the receiving end of stigmatising comments as a result of getting pregnant in their forties. 

For instance, Shehnaz — a 40-something-year-old acquaintance whose name has been changed to protect her anonymity — told me, “Instead of congratulating me, people around me asked: ‘What are you thinking? Have you gone crazy?’” Yet, for Shehnaz and every other woman I spoke to, becoming a mother — irrespective of their age — was the best thing to happen to them, and they would do it all over again. 

“It’s good that women are having kids at whatever age they want. Who are we to say when the cut off should be to have a baby? You do worry who will take care of them when you get older but life is unpredictable. My baby was Allah’s gift. She was meant to come to this world,” said Shehnaz.

Ironically, the fulfilment and excitement that all these mothers described to me is something I first heard from Mahira Khan herself.

Seven years ago, I interviewed Khan while she was promoting Superstar in Houston, Texas. I was in my first trimester with my first child. Noticing that my energy was flagging as we all stood around waiting for the event to begin, Khan asked if I was doing okay. When I told her I was fine, just fatigued because I was early in my pregnancy, she hugged me, then hugged me again. Then, holding me close, she told me, “This is the best thing… there is nothing better in the world than being a mother”. 

That day — in the throes of first trimester exhaustion — I couldn’t match her enthusiasm because I didn’t know what was coming for me. But today, six years and two kids later, I couldn’t agree more.

“Geriatric” moms

Webster’s Dictionary defines geriatric as “of or relating to the process of growing old and the medical care of old people”. Naturally, what then comes to mind is a withered, sickly person hobbling into a clinic with a cane. Yet, geriatric is the term the medical establishment deployed for a long, long time when talking about pregnant women over 35. 

According to Texas-based OB-GYN, Dr Sidra Yunus, doctors have recently begun moving toward the slightly more palatable term “advanced maternal age”.

“Geriatric pregnancy is an outdated and unnecessarily stigmatising term,” says Dr Yunus. “While it still appears in older medical literature, it is not the language I use with patients.” 

While the age of 35 as the cut-off for when a woman becomes “old” might feel arbitrary given how different every woman and their aging process is, apparently, the age was set as the threshold due to evidence indicating declining fertility and rising genetic abnormalities after that age. More on that later but, for now, the point being that labels — even when used in a neutral, medical context — matter. 

Take the case of a friend, who, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told me she would cringe every time her doctor referred to her as geriatric.

“I remember being sort of stunned the first time [the doctor] casually referred to me as one of his ‘geriatric’ patients,” she said. “I was only 35 and, in my mind, I did not feel or even look old. But every time I heard it, the implication felt like ‘I’m too old to be carrying this baby, I’m too old to care for this baby.’”

Biology 101

Labels and trolls aside, one thing is clearer now than ever: there is no perfect age to become a mother. Today more than at any point in history, motherhood in one’s forties is becoming closer to the norm than the exception. According to the CDC, the number of babies born to American women 40 and older jumped a whopping 193 per cent from 1990 to 2023. This means that in 2023, for the first time ever, more American babies were born to women 40 and older than to teenagers.

“Forty is the new 30,” Dr Joanne Stone, director of Maternal Fetal Medicine at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital, recently joked to CBS News. “Everybody’s older. If you have somebody that’s 28, it’s like a teen pregnancy.”

Of course, women are still beholden to biology. And pregnancy later in life comes with its share of risks.

“With advanced maternal age patients, the first [concern] is the ability to become pregnant and have a live birth. With a woman’s own eggs, fertility declines considerably in the mid-40s because both the number and chromosomal quality of the remaining eggs decline. The risks of miscarriage and chromosomal abnormalities therefore increase. Also, with the increasing age I tend to see more medical comorbidities: obesity, diabetes, autoimmune conditions, hypertension,” says Dr Yunus.

Unlike men, who are able to produce sperm throughout most of their lifespan, women are born with all the eggs we will ever have. At birth, a woman has about one to two million. By puberty, that number drops to between 300,000 and 500,000. And, by 37, it has dramatically fallen to around 25,000, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). 

The decrease in the number of eggs is not the only obstacle to getting pregnant. Egg quality declines too. For instance, having 100 eggs doesn’t mean all 100 will be viable. This is why the odds of getting pregnant without fertility treatment after the age of 40 drops sharply, according to the ACOG. Still, spontaneous and unplanned pregnancy after 40 is possible.

What are you waiting for?

Globally, women have more choice today than our mothers and, certainly, our grandmothers did. That choice has resulted in a cultural and lifestyle shift. We are choosing to stay in school longer. We are then spending years after that building our careers. And because we are focused on school and work in our 20s and 30s, we might be marrying later.

I can only use myself as an example. Despite subconsciously being aware of a ticking biological clock, no part of me wanted a child in my 20s. Even after I got married, there were things I wanted to do for myself, including travelling and grad school. After graduating from law school, I worked in Big Law, where 60-hour workweeks were the expectation. I remember walking into the bathroom at work once and finding a more senior attorney crying. She’d just learned she was pregnant and knew that it meant she’d be knocked back at least a year on the seven-year partnership track. And that was exactly what happened — after returning from maternity leave, she was passed over for promotion while her male counterpart made partner.

Another factor contributing to the rise in maternal age is the accessibility of birth control and fertility treatments like IVF, donor eggs and the practice of freezing one’s eggs, which all have collectively made pregnancy in one’s 40s possible for many more women.

As but one anecdotal example, my husband, who is an anesthesiologist, recently did an epidural for a 63-year-old who was using a donor egg to have a second child after her first son passed away. 

One friend who chose to freeze her eggs in her early 30s put the practice best: “I could either let desperation take over and marry the wrong person in my 20s just so I could have kids. Or, I could freeze my eggs, hope the right guy would come along, and then bring a baby into the world on my own terms,” she said. “I am 45 now and my body definitely aches after a day of chasing down a preschooler. But what I might lack in energy, I make up for in patience and emotional stability.”

According to Dr Sadia Durrani, a Texas-based OB-GYN, there is a stigma around being pregnant at 40+, but it is less pronounced than it used to be.

“Some women may feel self-conscious about being an ‘older mom’, particularly because of comments from family, friends, or even strangers,” says Dr Durrani. “There can be assumptions that the pregnancy was unexpected, that because the woman is ‘too old’ she will be significantly more tired or less able to keep up. I also think there is an emotional side that sometimes gets overlooked: a woman can be medically healthy and still feel that society is telling her that she is ‘too old’ to be starting or expanding her family. That stigma can be more significant than the medical issue itself.”

So why the backlash?

I’m 38 and still attending friends’ baby showers. This year alone, I’ve been invited to three for women over 40. Not once did I worry about the mom-to-be’s age or whether she’d live long enough to see her grandchildren, which is why I am still struggling to understand why — despite talking to several physicians and older moms for this story — there is this inevitable backlash when a woman over 40 (celebrity or otherwise) announces she’s pregnant.

If the data is telling us that pregnancy after 40 is the new normal, then why is our reaction to an older mom still so hostile? Why does the age of a 40-something pregnant woman become the headline? And why, in Pakistan and the Pakistani diaspora, does that hostility feel even louder?

Part of the answer, I think, is simple math. In Pakistan, women are still marrying and having children young. Unlike Western mothers, the average age of a first-time mother in Pakistan is 22. That means a lot of Pakistani women in their 40s aren’t planning their baby showers. They’re planning their daughter or son’s wedding and, by 45, they might even be nanis or dadis. 

So, for 41-year-old Mahira Khan with a teenage son to announce a pregnancy means she is going against a script that is internalised by Pakistani women since girlhood. Indeed, Khan, who had her first child at 25, followed that script at one point.

And because age is something Pakistani women are taught to lie about or conceal and because divorce and remarrying still carry a lot of stigma amongst Pakistanis, Khan announcing she’s pregnant with her second husband triggers a lot of our collective mental cultural baggage. Simply put: people feel threatened by a woman who refuses to lie about her age, has spoken candidly about being a single parent, and is now living proof that a person can and should have a second chance at both love and parenthood — no matter their age.

There’s also the fact that in Pakistani culture, a woman’s body — even her life — is never really her own. A pregnant woman in her 40s makes us uncomfortable because she it’s proof she is not celibate. And that’s apparently intolerable and unfathomable in a culture where a woman past a certain age is expected to drop joy from her life and instead spend her time arranging marriages instead of having a romantic life of her own. 

All this means that, for Pakistani women, the window in which to produce a child is predetermined not just by our biology but by our society. 

Get married at 24 and within the first year of marriage, you can expect to be asked the inevitable, “Khush khabri kab suna rahi ho (when will you give us good news)?” By year two, you can expect to be asked if everything is ‘normal’ followed by the suggestion that maybe you should see a doctor. Having one child means you’ll very quickly be told: “Ek bachay ko akela mat chorro” i.e. give them a sibling. But, should a child turn up in your 40s? Well then, the commentary sounds like Mahira Khan’s comment section: “iss umar mein (at this age)?” 

Meanwhile, male counterparts — no matter how geriatric they may be — get to keep finding new sources of joy in  the shape of a second, younger wife who brings forth children no matter the uncle’s age. 

Bollywood movie Badhaai Ho addresses this cultural stigma. In the movie, when a middle-aged woman (Neena Gupta) with grown sons gets pregnant, her sons are mortified while her relatives, friends, and neighbors collectively lose their mind gossiping and mocking the situation. 

So while in the West the “geriatric” label lives mostly in the doctors’ office, in Pakistan it permeates society. 

Seven years ago, Mahira Khan hugged a very tired, pregnant me and said there was nothing better in the world than being a mother. She didn’t add “if you’re the right age”. Now, she is about to find out all over again, at 41, whether she was right. I’m betting she was.

And to the people in her comments asking “iss umar mein?” I’d offer a simpler answer: yes, at this age. At any age her body and her life allow. The only thing that feels truly old here is the question.

The star was speaking to The Express Tribune about her latest film, Sheroes, when she said the notion of cinemagoers supporting Pakistani films just because they’re from Pakistan was “quite old” and that “people want entertainment”.

Abbas said people go to theatres if they’re done with other activities like eating out, and want to be entertained, so the responsibility falls on filmmakers to prove themselves and make films to scratch that itch.

The actor said there were films that had succeeded in capturing their audiences, like Spider-Man, which had people dress up and show up to theatres every time a new film was released.

“It’s because Spider-Man has created a niche, Spider-Man has a very big franchise with Marvel,” the star said, adding that Pakistan needed to create franchises like that for its audiences.

Abbas said Pakistani filmmakers also need to instil confidence in their audiences that whatever they are paying to watch will be worth the Rs1,500 to Rs2,000 they are charged per seat.

“Look, not every Spider-Man movie has been great, all of them have flaws, but [people] know that the films have Tom Holland and Zendaya and they will get the kick they want from the movie.”

Coming to her own film, the actor said, “We can only ask you to give it a try. I am only going to tell you, ‘Come, look at it, have a watch.’”

She said her team was trying out new things and the film had been made by new directors — one of whom is making his debut feature for a cinema audience.

Sheroes is an anthology film with three stories of three separate women, each in an entirely different situation.

Abbas is the lead actor in the action-packed segment ‘Gear Up’ where she plays a police officer specialising in bomb disposal. The other two segments, ‘Artist’ and ‘Punch’ are led by Kinza Hashmi and Ushna Shah respectively.

Speaking to Dawn’s Fatima Attarwala on the podcast All Things Money, she said the problem with Pakistan’s art scene was not a lack of talent — there was enough to go around — there just weren’t that many patrons of contemporary artists.

“We have no dearth of artists. We have no dearth of good artists. We have a dearth of awareness of the arts. We have a dearth of patronage of the arts,” Raja said.

She said the public’s idea of art around the world had changed substantially in the 21st century, but it remained somewhat stagnant in Pakistan, including in diaspora Pakistanis, who changed with the world in all other aspects, but still wanted to see the Pakistan of yore in art.

“They’re still looking for that little piece of Pakistan that they left behind 40 years back, a street scene, a rickshaw, wires, the Thari women, the swirling dervishes — which were never part of our history — [and] calligraphy, which is really not our strength. And they’re still looking for that because I think they want to prove or retain that part of Pakistaniyat.”

She said part of the problem was how we treat art as a society. She said when children are in school, great emphasis is placed on them studying and excelling in science and maths, while art is treated as a “stepchild”.

Raja said that while society may see art as unimportant, it actually helps people with their “physical and mental well-being”.

These attitudes, she said, have resulted in people not having awareness about and access to the art scene. The curator pointed out that Karachi, the country’s largest urban centre, did not have an art museum, which is what led to even the city’s more educated echelons not being familiar with art.

“Until people see art in the public sphere, how would they become aware of it? That’s why you’re still living in the rickshaws and the telephone wires and the electricity wires and, you know, the Thari women,” she said.

As for what can be done, Raja said raising awareness was especially important, but it must be done by people from the field, not bureaucrats and government workers. She said people with relevant knowledge telling others about art might eventually get the public and private sectors to work together to promote the arts.

The private sector, she said, was especially important to this in a Pakistani context because the government of a developing country had more urgent issues to solve. The state could, however, contribute in other ways.

“Our issues are roti, kapda aur makaan, (food, clothing and housing,) right? So, I would never actually ask the government to put in money into an art project, because I think that is something that they can avoid doing. They should only be facilitating the process. They should be working with the school syllabus, because that they can do.”

The curator said there were success stories of private sector interest advancing art in developing countries, including examples from India and Bangladesh.

“They have foundations, they have trusts, which are all private people. So, they have the vision… because there’s wealth there. There is wealth over here also, but it’s just that the wealthy over here are not culturally inclined.”

She said one major difference was that Pakistanis were not yet comfortable with their cultural identity like their neighbours. Raja hoped that, if the people of Pakistan can move out of that discomfort, they’d begin appreciating art for all the good it brings into their lives.

The exhibition displaying over four decades of fashion photography by celebrated photographer Tapu Javeri evoked a strong sense of déjà vu for Gen-X-ers, many of whom could vividly recall the striking high-fashion imagery by top fashion models and celebrities on the covers of fashion glossies and centrespreads within the numerous fashion and lifestyle magazines throughout the ‘80s, ‘90s and 2000s, and beyond.

Many of these names and faces that had started out then went on to become legends on the fashion landscape, and continue to trailblaze paths in fashion even today.

Kaleidoscopic Karachi not only brought together the fashion fraternity after what seemed like eons, but also supporters, patrons as well as philanthropists who proudly occupied the front rows flanking either side of the ramp.

Kaleidoscopic Karachi evokes fond memories and fashion’s futuristic perspective

Some very well-known names and faces who hadn’t been seen for a while sat shoulder to shoulder, greeting each other and catching up while cheering for their favourite designers. Both the night and atmosphere were charged with camaraderie and excitement, not knowing what to expect as fashion finally returned to Karachi.

The fashion certainly rose to the challenge with a line-up of Karachi-based fashion powerhouses such as Sana Safinaz, Deepak Perwani, Khaadi, The Pink Tree Company and Wardha Saleem — all of whom created exquisite art-pieces with signature styles.

Show opener Perwani showed a monochrome collection with tell-tale cuts and silhouettes with embellished detailing. He brought firebrands former fashion models Seemi Pasha, Frieha Altaf and Atiya Khan on to the ramp with him in an inspiringly true fashion moment.

Khaadi’s experimentation and play with prints and embellished tunics was everything that could be expected from the likes of a true fashion visionary such as Shamoon Sultan. Bold, provocative, groundbreaking and futuristic, Khaadi took fashion beyond its limits by paving the ground for the future of fashion in the metropolis.

Where Khaadi was all about future, Saleem’s time travel style escapade took us into the past where the intricate old city architecture and history etched in concrete weaved its way into garment form. Helping the collection along its way was the Bandar Road Se Keamari anthem that prepped things up for all and sundry.

The Pink Tree Company’s gota galore and gold blockprint work has all the makings of a fashion rage come this wedding season, perfected with styling by Nabila’s team of hair and make-up wizards working under her ever watchful glare and Tabesh Khoja’s guidelines. The show choreography was by Nubain Ali.

Sana Safinaz stole the show as always with their sophisticated approach to old-school style and grandeur.

The smart money is always on Sana Safinaz for a reason come festive couture or wedding-wear for a very distinct reason, and at Kaleidoscopic Karachi the audience got a sneak-peek at the regality of a world where endless style meets infinite charm.

Originally published in Dawn, September 29th, 2026

Member of the Punjab Assembly Hina Parvez also joined in the conversation on Saturday, using the drama to highlight the importance of honest conversations between couples.

In an Instagram video, Butt, who is also the chairperson of the Punjab Women Protection Authority, urged married couples to communicate with each other. She shared her views after playing the infamous break-up scene from Dar-e-Nijaat, in which the antagonist, Zamil (Nameer Khan) tells his long-time girlfriend Zaryab (Durefishan Saleem) he can’t marry her because she isn’t a good enough Muslim wife for him.

“After marriage, there may be things from the past, an old relationship, or something personal that you would prefer to keep private. But if such a secret comes to light, it can have an impact on your relationship,” Butt said, before cautioning against anger, as it rarely solves a tense situation.

“Husband and wife should talk openly with each other. Instead of hiding things or lying, try to address the matter together. If there is a misunderstanding, resolve it through honest communication,” she added.

Butt also highlighted the importance of respect and trust in a marriage and advised couples not to ‘taunt’ each other by bringing up any past relationships or mistakes.

“Leave the past in the past. Work towards making your present better,” she said in the video.

It’s refreshing to see a government official use a television drama to talk about a broader social topic.

In Pakistan, getting into a relationship before marriage, covertly or overtly, is still considered — to a great extent — socially unacceptable. In fact, there is a significant part of the country’s population that looks down upon even engaged couples seeing each other before marriage.

As a result, more often than not, people are either unable or unwilling to openly talk about past relationships with their spouse. Due to the patriarchal nature of Pakistani society, this lack of communication is more common among women, who are expected to conform to a certain stringent standard of purity.

Consequently, more women also suffer harsher consequences for having, as Butt phrased it in her video, a ‘past’. This is exactly what Dar-e-Nijaat is attempting to highlight through its plot.

Pakistani dramas lately have helped spark important social debates and the fact that their messages are being used by lawmakers to spread awareness regarding key social issues is certainly commendable.

Rahat Fateh Ali Khan — who learned to sing under the tutelage of his famous uncle — gave a statement before his concert in Toronto on Sunday praising Dosanjh for doing justice to the piece.

“It would be appropriate to say that very big artists get nervous when performing [Nusrat] sahab’s songs, but Diljit has fully done it justice, to the best of his ability, in a wonderful way with all his heart,” Rahat said.

“We can see it and hear it too, so I will appreciate [him].”

Dosanjh made history on September 12, becoming the first Punjabi artist to headline a show at Wembley — one of the world’s biggest event stages.

At the venue, which has hosted greats such as Michael Jackson, Queen, Madonna, David Bowie and U2, the Punjabi singer led an emotional crowd as they sang along to Nusrat’s work.

It was a departure from his usual style, as his own body of work leans into modern styles like hip-hop. He initially shot to international fame by blending traditional folk music with hip-hop.

As for making history, he’s been doing that for a while now.

In 2023, Dosanjh became the first Punjabi artist to perform at Coachella. In June 2024, he made his debut on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

Later that year in October, the singer became the first South Asian artist to appear on the cover of Billboard Magazine.

In an Instagram post shared on Sunday, she rejected the notion that beauty lies in people’s physical appearances and argued that true beauty lies in how people choose to conduct themselves in their lives.

Farooq said “stretch marks, acne marks, hair loss, weight gain,” can determine neither a person’s beauty, nor their worth. Human bodies, she said, change with time, stress, trauma, and illness, and patriarchal beauty standards convince women they need to fit into a pre-made box.

The actor said someone’s “deepest beauty” lives in things like “the love you carry in your heart, the intelligence of your mind, the purity of your soul, the glimmer of hope in your eyes, the way you face adversity, the desire to always do and be better than yesterday,” and so much else.

She made her instructions crystal clear — “You do you. Own yourself. You’ll glow inside and out.”

Farooq asked her followers to accept, honour and embrace the physical bodies that have carried them through adversity after adversity.

“Be grateful for [your body]. Be gentle with it. Carry it towards health with gratitude being your best friend,” the actor advised.

Farooq asked people to live their own lives and let others live theirs because “[someone’s] body is not a public debate, a cautionary tale or an invitation for commentary”.

“Let everybody exist without needing permission. Let people dress, age, change, heal and take up space without being measured against someone else’s standards.”

The actor said people need to “break the cycle” with their thoughts and actions. She advised them to “be unapologetically yourself and make room for everyone else to do the same”.

While her message is sure to resonate with many, this isn’t the first time Farooq has spoken up about people shaming others for their physical appearances. In 2024, she spoke about her role in the show Bismil and how she decided not to go on a crash diet to lose weight for it.

She’s also been on the receiving end of body shaming, with one notable incident from 2021 seeing the actor face a distasteful joke made by Faryal Mehmood on TV.

Farooq has, in the past, also talked about her journey with keeping healthy and how it can be a worthwhile challenge for someone to take on.

The play’s narrative can now be categorised as following Yasir Hussain’s signature style: burlesque, raucous, sometimes witty, sometimes mindless, laden with innuendos and pointed, current jokes. The one-liners come fast: digs at Karachi’s notorious lack of cleanliness, jokes about actor and producer Humayun Saeed and TV host Fiza Ali, actor Faysal Quraishi’s remarkable weight loss and a sardonic nod at the prevalence of ‘black money’ and so on.

Yasir has often expressed his admiration for the madcap Umer Sharif’s stage dramas of yore, where the focus would just be on making the audience laugh. In this vein, he hasn’t bothered with being politically correct. The humour isn’t sanitised, vetted and weighed so that it doesn’t offend — this hare-brained gang is here to make you laugh and not take anything too seriously.

So Suite’s initial run took place in Lahore, followed by a few days’ tryst in Multan, after which it touched down in Karachi. Even the jokes travelled. Speaking after the first performance, Yasir explains that the script is tweaked according to the city the play is taking place in: “The phone ringtone in the Karachi show is of Hania Aamir’s song ‘Pablo’ — in Lahore it was something else.”

With the stage play So Suite, Yasir Hussain is back doing what he does best: delivering fast, irreverent comedy designed for live audiences. The actor, director and writer talks theatre, timing, Umer Sharif and why this is his time to be on stage

It is a small detail but an important one. Much of the appeal of Yasir’s theatre lies in its immediacy. The jokes belong to the moment — they are written for the audience sitting in front, in the city where it is being performed and about the things people are talking about right now.

Made for the stage

It wouldn’t be wrong to say that theatre has always been a sort of second home for Yasir. Acting in television dramas and films, hosting, writing credits, directing projects and the occasional candid statement in an interview may have made him a familiar name, but stage is where his particular brand of comic timing has perhaps found its most natural habitat.

One remembers him holding the fort as Akbar in playwright Anwar Maqsood and director Dawar Mehmood’s theatrical production of Aangan Terrha. Yasir’s association with Mehmood’s Kopykats Productions has extended to many other hugely popular stage productions, including Pawnay 14 August, Sawa 14 August and Half Plate.

In thespian circles, it’s a known fact that when Yasir Hussain’s name is in the cast of a stage play, tickets sell faster. Theatre has always been a significant part of Yasir’s repertoire, so it’s no surprise that, last year, he launched his own theatrical venture, called Lo Iq Films, with Monkey Business.

Yet, for all his obvious affinity for theatre, Yasir has never wanted to be defined by a single medium.

He muses, “I think I have had my successes with film too. At least once every two years, I am seen in a movie. I enjoy producing TV dramas and hosting. At the same time, I have never wanted to be stuck in a rut. There was a time when I was hosting a show for Hum TV and I could have continued to do so, but I did not want to risk being known primarily as a host.”

I insist that, on stage particularly, his work is distinctive. Does he not feel that? That his comic timing sets him apart from many of his peers? He agrees.

“Yes, comic timing is very important. The way a sentence is structured is sometimes the key to it being funny. When I write a play, that’s when I realise why playwrights such as Khalil-ur-Rehman Qamar throw a fuss when their scripts are tweaked. In particular sentences, the entire impact depends on how the words are joined together, the impact that they leave.”

Timing is everything

Yasir continues: “I have honed my comic timing over the years, and it is essential to a performance on stage. The late Umer Sharif’s timing was impeccable. However, I once met him in his later years, and he was trying to deliver jokes with the same promptness, but it made me sad to see that sometimes his timing would weaken.

“That’s when I realised that there is no point in saving away jokes, setting them aside for a later performance. Right now, I am in my prime, I can deliver one-liners one after the other. I can perform live for nearly an hour. This is my time to be on stage.”

Yasir’s stamina certainly is something one wonders about as he races about the stage, never missing a beat in the mad romp that categorises his particular theatrical template. In Monkey Business, he was on stage most of the time. In So Suite, he gives himself a break for a few scenes, letting the rest of the cast handle the story before returning to the fray.

“It can be exhausting,” says Yasir. “When I step backstage after a scene, I sometimes pause to catch my breath. And after the show, a lot of times, people from the audience come to meet me and I see videos of me with them, smiling weakly. You have to put in so much energy and make sure everything is timed right — it can take its toll.”

Did he deliberately write So Suite’s script in a way that there would be considerable scenes where he would not be on stage?

“Yes, I wanted the rest of the cast to carry the story too,” admits Yasir. “I want to prepare new actors who can share the stage with me and, sometimes, also perform all on their own.”

Not exactly politically correct

Did he worry that certain jokes in his script might offend audience members? “No, I don’t think about this,” retorts Yasir. “And I think the audience isn’t getting offended either. Every day, after the show, I meet people who tell me they laughed throughout.

“Our shows have done very well in Lahore, Multan and, now, Karachi. Humour created within boundaries is like serving food without salt. It would be bland.” He adds, “Yes, there are jokes that tilt towards being ‘bold’, but the first show in Karachi was staged before our friends and family and they weren’t offended. This makes me hopeful that the audiences that come in on other days will also just enjoy the show.”

And does he sometimes end up laughing while writing his script? “You know, I have never found my script to be funny,” he confesses.

“Till the very last day of rehearsals, I keep asking my actors if a certain scene is funny or not. I usually come up with a basic script and, while we rehearse it, I start adding more jokes. There is no day when I am not anxious before stepping on stage. This feeling drives me to do a good job every day. The day I become over-sure of myself, the performance will suffer.”

Does he manage to extract the same level of dedication from his actors?

“They all work very hard,” Yasir concedes, “but there have been times when an actor has particularly received a lot of applause one day but the next day, they just don’t perform well. I think that a lot of people, after they get a tiny bit of praise, they start believing that they are Dilip Kumar! This overconfidence can really affect their performance.”

He then points out another issue that keeps coming up with actors. “It is also exhausting when I am working with actors who simultaneously have TV drama commitments. There are times when we have waited till 11 at night for members of the cast to turn up after wrapping up their TV drama shoots.

“I understand that they have other work, but I am very particular about treating my cast well. They get paid well and in advance, and when we are travelling, I put them up at good hotels and take care of their transport and meals. I try to facilitate them the best that I can but, in return, I expect them to be focused on their work.”

He elaborates why he feels actors should give as much importance to theatre. “TV has its pull, but a single scene where an actor performs well might get lost in the overall episode. On stage, that scene will win immediate applause. There is nothing like it.”

The importance of being ‘with it’

Both of Yasir’s theatrical productions have been huge hits. Why hasn’t he considered releasing videos of the plays on YouTube, like Umer Sharif’s plays used to be available on video cassettes?

“Back then, people would sit and watch entire plays for hours — now, they watch two-minute reels,” Yasir points out. “People enjoy seeing the performance on stage, but I believe that they would not be as entertained if the same play were to be uploaded in its entirety on YouTube.

“Also, people find the jokes funny because they are relevant. In Monkey Business, I had quipped about [actor] Danish Taimoor because, back then, his controversial ‘filhaal’ (for the time being) quote had been making the rounds. Today, that joke won’t work. People have moved on. I will now joke about other things.

“The strength of the comedy relies heavily on it being very current,” adds Yasir. “If I stage this same play a few months from now, I would change a lot of the jokes, according to what is being discussed at that time.”

In between So Suite’s multi-city theatrical run, Yasir also managed to squeeze in a trip to Thailand, where he shot for the forthcoming movie Jawani Phir Nahin Ani 3 (JPNA 3). He is one of the new additions to the cast of the popular movie series, which is currently being filmed and is tentatively scheduled to be released early next year.

“I flew directly from Multan to shoot abroad for Jawani Phir Nahin Ani 3. Some of the shooting is still left. It has been a great experience. I have learnt so much, working with Humayun Saeed, Fahad Mustafa and Nadeem Baig.”

Also in the works is a movie that Yasir has co-written, which he also plans to produce, direct and star in: 5,000 Mein Shaadi! “My elder sister says that I should try to bring out one theatrical production every year, so that is something which I am considering,” he divulges. “However, I don’t know how long I will be able to do this without an investor coming on board.

“It’s a risky, exhausting business,” he says more sombrely. “A show can get cancelled if the city’s law-and-order situation is in turmoil or if it rains. Actors might fall ill and be unable to perform in a show. There is a lot that has to be taken care of and maybe I won’t be able to do this consistently, simply on my own strength.”

That would be a pity. Yasir’s brand of theatre is a breath of fresh air. Here’s an example: in one particular sequence in So Suite, dancers come on stage and perform a routine. Then, Yasir addresses them, “Bhai aap loag tau jao (Guys, please leave).” They all retreat, except for one, who goes on to perform a few cartwheels before he departs.

At this, Yasir quips, “Yeh woh kitanu hai jo saabun se bhi nahin marta! (He’s the germ that even soap can’t kill!).” It’s a witticism that comes at just the right time, pointedly referring to those ubiquitous Hindi language TV soap ads which declare that they kill off 99 percent of all known germs.

That’s quintessential Yasir Hussain: irreverent, immediate and deliciously, inimitably funny.

So Suite is being staged at the Arts Council of Pakistan, Karachi auditorium from September 16 to 27, 2026

Originally published in Dawn, ICON, September 27th, 2026

She also won Video of the Year, which she dedicated to country legend Dolly Parton, praising the recently deceased performer’s music and saying “every single song she wrote, her storytelling was so vivid”.

“She handled this fame with such grace and love and gratitude,” she added.

Swift used the occasion to premiere the video for her new single ‘Patient Zero’, which stars actors Colin Farrell and Dakota Johnson. In the track, Swift warns a woman about her partner, with whom the singer had a toxic relationship.

“If he’s killing you / I got you / I was patient zero,” she sings.

But Swift struck out in some of the show’s biggest categories, including Artist of the Year, which went to the queen of pop, Madonna.

While accepting the prize, Madonna reminisced about how her manager scolded her backstage at the very first MTV awards show, where she briefly mooned the audience in a performance fumble.

“My manager said my career was over,” she said, adding that he wasn’t her manager anymore.

Known for creating an indelible VMAs moment when she kissed Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera onstage during a 2003 medley, Madonna also opened the show with her first performance at the event since that night.

Sporting knee-high boots and her platinum tresses loose, the 68-year-old pop queen sang ‘Bring Your Love’ alongside Sabrina Carpenter before medleying with Charli XCX for ‘Danceteria’.

While accepting the award for Best Collaboration after their performance, Madonna and Carpenter joked about how the material girl direct messaged via social media to get them into the studio for the collaboration.

Grunge band Nirvana received the Video Vanguard award. They are the first group to receive the top honour in more than 20 years. Frontman Kurt Cobain died by suicide in 1994, after studio albums Nevermind and In Utero skyrocketed to success.

“Nirvana continues to resonate so deeply because people are still hungry for authenticity,” bass player Krist Novoselic said after a video retrospective of the band’s videos.

“Something real, something uncompromising. Something that tells you it’s just okay to come as you are.”

Thai artist LISA, a member of girl group Blackpink, won the award for best pop for ‘Dream’, featuring Kentaro Sakaguchi.

The vast majority of awards were doled out offstage during an evening far better known for its performances and stage antics than its prizes.

Kacey Musgraves headlined a tribute to late country legend Dolly Parton, while Teddy Swims, Sombr and Raye offered a soulful tribute to crooner George Michael, 40 years after the release of his landmark album Faith.

Rapper Snoop Dogg hosted the ceremony, which aired on CBS and MTV.

In a post on his Instagram account, the actor said the show “was not merely a drama” for him, but represented “a defining journey in my career, a chapter that challenged me, inspired me and ultimately became a new beginning”.

He thanked producers Momina Duraid and Nina Kashif first for helping bring such a story to TV screens. “Our society needs stories that make us reflect and look within,” Khan said.

He appreciated Kashif in particular as a friend and thanked her for trusting him with the show’s lead character.

Next came director Saife Hasan, whom the actor called “an asset, not just to the project, but to everyone fortunate enough to work alongside you”.

The longest tribute was naturally reserved for Khan’s co-lead Urwa Hocane. “I could not have done what I did without you beside me. Your presence as my co-actor brought out the best in me and allowed Tabish to truly shine,” he said.

The actor called Urwa “supremely talented, an exceptional actor, a beautiful human being and a truly cherished friend”.

Their co-star Sania Saeed got a more light-hearted ode from Khan for “finally becoming my mother on screen instead of my heroine”.

He commended the other actors on the show for their work, “brilliant, effortless and extraordinary as ever” and said a “heartfelt thank you to my entire crew: every technician, spot boy, helper and every member working tirelessly behind the scenes,” calling them the backbone of every performance.

Lastly, the actor thanked the writer of Aap Ki Izzat, Umera Ahmed, for penning such a meaningful script. “Your words gave this story its soul and its truth,” he said.

While last weekend marked the end of the saga of Tabish and Beena, Khan’s fans need not worry because the programme replacing Aap Ki Izzat on HUM TV is none other than his classic pre-Partition period-piece Aangan, which will be airing again after its successful 2018 run.

The show — which is directed by Mohammed Ehteshamuddin and based on a 1962 novel by Khadija Mastoor — stars Urwa’s sister Mawra, Ahad Raza Mir, Sajal Ali and Sonya Hussyn alongside Khan.

The function was arranged by Peshawarians Literary Society (PLS) at a local college to mark the fifth death anniversary of Zaitoon Bano (1938-2021).

Addressing the function as chief guest, Prof Afsha Bano, the daughter of Zaitoon Bano and vice-principal of Peshawar Public School and College, said that her mother was a true beacon of light, who transformed numerous souls through her inspirational writings, broadcast work and lifelong commitment to social enlightenment.

The commemorative event was organised to honour her monumental contributions to Pashto and Urdu literature, drawing a large number of students, scholars and literary enthusiasts from across the provincial capital.

Speakers laud the writer for breaking social barriers to give voice to women

A central highlight of the gathering was the active participation of young scholars, including Salman Haider, Raza Gilani, Shazia Roman and Bilqees Trannum, who read out selected quotes, critical excerpts and reflections from leading literary figures, including renowned Prof Abaseen Yousafzai, Bushra Farrukh and Prof Salma Shaheen. The audience warmly appreciated the young readers for effectively presenting the intellectual weight of these literary heavyweights.

Although senior intellectuals could not attend the function in person due to prior commitments, their insights, delivered through the young scholars’ well-prepared presentations, underscored Zaitoon Bano’s trailblazing role in bringing realism and gender consciousness into mainstream Pashto fiction. The literary discourse demonstrated how her narrative craft continued to resonate deeply with younger generations of readers and aspiring researchers.

Through recitations by Salman Haider and Raza Gilani, Prof Abaseen Yousafzai’s commentary highlighted that Zaitoon Bano was not merely a teller of tales, but a bold social reformer whose pen consistently challenged regressive traditions while upholding the nobility of Pakhtun culture. His quotes focused on her unique ability to portray complex societal dynamics with rare sensitivity and artistic perfection.

Excerpts presented by Shazia Roman focused on Bushra Farrukh’s reflections regarding Bano’s enduring legacy at Radio Pakistan, noting how her dramatic works, radio plays, and broadcast scripts paved the way for generations of female communicators, playwrights and literary voices across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Farrukh’s commentary noted that Bano’s powerful scripts gave confidence to women to claim space in public media.

Quotes presented by Bilqees Trannum from Prof Salma Shaheen’s academic work emphasised Bano’s mastery over regional folklore and her rare ability to capture the authentic idiom of women’s lived experiences. The critical evaluation noted that Bano enriched Pashto prose by integrating domestic folk expressions into structured literary fiction, preserving intangible cultural heritage for posterity.

Other speakers said that Zaitoon Bano’s prolific creative journey, spanning several decades, produced ground-breaking short story collections and television plays that remained benchmarks in Pashto literature. They emphasised that her literary courage opened new pathways for women writers across the region.

Originally published in Dawn, September 28th, 2026

In a letter posted to its website on Thursday, the IDA condemned the Israeli government’s “public campaign of intimidation” against Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, both Israeli, who have been accused of treason.

The move comes almost a week after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that his government would seek legislation to revoke the citizenship of anyone who ‘slanders’ or ‘defames’ Israeli soldiers or the state.

“Since NAZA won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival, senior Israeli officials have moved against its directors. The culture minister has accused them of treason and sought to revoke their citizenship. The prime minister has announced bills to revoke the citizenship of anyone who ‘slanders IDF soldiers’ and to raise defamation damages twentyfold,” the letter read.

It noted that this rhetoric has led to wider public backlash against the filmmakers. They have been labelled ‘traitors’ in graffiti, while people have protested outside the home of Szor’s parents.

The IDA stressed that holding a different view of a film should never put its creators at risk.

The letter continues: “The Israeli military disputes the film’s account, and it is entitled to do so. But as a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Israel is bound by Article 19, under which restrictions on expression must be provided by law and be necessary and proportionate to a legitimate aim. Revoking citizenship, imposing punitive damages, or opening security investigations in response to a documentary does not meet that test.”

The IDA called on the Israeli goverment to withdraw the threats to revoke Abraham’s and Szor’s citizenship, to respect the filmmakers’ journalistic right to refuse to disclose the identities of confidential sources and to reject changes to public film funding that penalise filmmakers for critical work.

At the time of writing this article, the IDA’s letter has been signed by nearly 300 people, including Hollywood actors Mark Ruffalo and Javier Bardem, who are known for their vocal activism against the ongoing genocide of Palestinians by the Israeli military. Several Oscar-winning filmmakers such as Alex Gibney (who recently made headlines for his new documentary Musk) and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy also signed the letter.

NAZA takes its name from a euphemism used by Israeli intelligence to indicate how many civilians are expected to be killed in an airstrike. The documentary received a 25-minute ovation at its Venice premiere.

After its run in cinemas, the film will stream on The Guardian’s website for free in November, as part of the news organisation’s commitment to the dissemination of independent journalism.

The music that used to flow constantly out of restaurants, cafes and shops in the capital Kabul has been muted for five years, replaced only by religious or patriotic songs supported by the Taliban authorities in power since 2021.

But taxi drivers such as Roeen have started playing Afghan and regional folk or pop music, which they quickly turn off when security forces may be around.

“At every checkpoint we pass, we lower the volume of the music or even turn it off completely… so I don’t get into trouble with them,” said Roeen, who gave only his first name for security reasons.

The ban on music in public places is imposed by the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (PVPV) Ministry, whose morality police roam the city wearing long white coats.

PVPV regulations state that “since music is forbidden and causes annoyance to passengers, drivers must refrain from playing or listening to it”.

The ministry did not respond when asked to comment on punishments Afghans face for playing music, but those breaching their various other rules risk being jailed.

Roeen said PVPV officials have “a lot of authority”.

“We’re definitely too afraid of them to be able to listen to music at a higher volume,” he told AFP in his sky blue-and-white taxi.

Driving through the heavy traffic and noisy roads of Kabul, Roeen said he has “become 10 times more interested in music” since the ban.

“I have to make sure that even if I can’t listen in the early morning, by eight o’clock my music is on,” he said.

In a country where various forms of entertainment including cinema are outlawed, listening to music constantly is a “form of protest” for the 28-year-old driver.

‘Stress’ and no headphones

Another taxi driver, who requested anonymity for security reasons, told AFP he only listens to music when he is alone in his car and surrounded by the noise of other vehicles.

“Before, whenever a person wanted, they could listen without any worry or stress. But now… personally I listen — but with some stress,” he said in his car that had a radio player with a USB slot.

The 32-year-old has been stopped twice at checkpoints for having a USB stick and a memory card.

“I didn’t lie — I said it has music, and they broke it,” he said.

“Afghan culture should not vanish, and music is one of the cultures of our people. Personally, I don’t want this culture to disappear.”

As part of their crackdown on banned music, the PVPV’s provincial departments occasionally report burning instruments. No figures are available on how many they have seized, according to ministry spokesman Saiful Islam Khyber.

Across the capital, residents use shared taxis as an affordable way to get around a city which lacks a proper public transport system.

Often, two passengers sit alongside the driver in the front, three are in the back, and sometimes someone rides in the open boot.

Shamsullah Ahmad, a master’s student, spoke to AFP while waiting for a taxi near his university.

“I prefer to listen to music every day; whenever I go to any destination, I try to check if the taxi has a music player,” said the 29-year-old.

“I prefer music in the car, because wearing headphones would be noticed, but in the car, even with lower volume is better than nothing,” Ahmad said.

The morality police have been known to take headphones out of Afghans’ ears to check if they are listening to music.

Roeen, the driver, misses the days when “we could listen to songs, dance, and celebrate, and no one would stop us”.

But now the city is “shrouded in darkness — a darkness devoid of any light”, he said, above the din of growling engines.

In the video, two special moments from the actor’s career play together: her twirling as Khirad in the famous 2011 drama and her twirling as Bilqees Bano in her new show, Mitti De Baway, which premiered this month around the same time of year as Humsafar did 15 years ago.

Mahira wrote a heartfelt message to her fans, calling them her “dearest, my most precious Humsafars” and saying it had been “15 years of loving and twirling in that love”.

“15 years…. Of surrendering to life, to the characters I picked and those that were picked for me. It is surreal to have Mitti De Baway air on the same day that Humsafar was aired that many years ago. And even though so much has changed, all of you have remained the same for me. My constants. My backbone and my strength. From Khirad to Bilo… I am filled with nothing but shukr. Here’s to all of you… here’s to a lifetime of being each other’s humsafars, may there never be judaai. May there never be bewafaai,” the actor wrote.

This is not the first time Mahira has done something special for her fans to celebrate Humsafar. For its 10th anniversary, she held a surprise question-and-answer session on X, which was called Twitter back then.

Humsafar — based on a novel by Farhat Ishtiaq — revolves around two cousins, Khirad and Ashar (played by Fawad Khan), a couple in an arranged marriage who face separation and heartbreak before finding their way back to each other. The drama became a huge hit, not just in Pakistan but all over the world. The show is often credited with giving the Pakistani drama industry a big boost.

It came at a time when many people were tuning into Indian and Turkish shows, but Humsafar proved that Pakistani stories could be just as popular — and even more loved.

The show had a big impact on almost everyone involved. Mahira became a household name and her role as the strong-headed and uncompromising Khirad made her one of Pakistan’s most loved actors. She later made her Bollywood debut opposite Shah Rukh Khan in Raees.

Fawad became a star across the border too, appearing in hit Hindi films such as Khoobsurat, Kapoor & Sons and Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. For director Sarmad Khoosat, Humsafar made him one of the most respected creators on television and he later went on to make famous films such as Manto and Zindagi Tamasha and, more recently, Lali.

Now, 15 years later, Mahira is winning hearts all over again with Mitti De Baway. The new drama, set in Punjab, stars her alongside Wahaj Ali. It has already received glowing reviews after just a couple of episodes.

Earlier this month, Mahira, 41, also revealed she is expecting her second child during her appearance at the Toronto International Film Festival. It marks a new chapter for her, coming years after the birth of her 17-year-old son Azlan.

Between the Humsafar anniversary, the praise for Mitti De Baway and her pregnancy news, Mahira is having a remarkable month.

So, for Mahira, the twirling goes on — from one iconic character to the next, with her Humsafar fans watching every step of the way.

These numbers suggest a golden age, but this success also raises a critical question: Pakistani dramas have a massive digital footprint — but is the industry ready for a subscription-based streaming model?

ARY Digital has used the recent success of Tamasha Season 5 to benefit its digital ambitions. The massive fan following of the show laid out a timely opportunity for the channel to push its proprietary platform, ARY Plus.

According to the channel’s own early statistics, this appears to have worked, with 10.8 million downloads and a 25-minute average watch time recorded even before the formal app launch.

This suggests an impressive uptake and willingness to engage with the platform. The channel has subsequently moved its premium drama content away from YouTube and onto ARY Plus for domestic viewers.

Currently the app is free to download and use. Viewers can pay to watch Tamasha’s uncut live feed for Rs100 locally and $1 outside Pakistan, offering an early test of viewers’ willingness to pay for extra content.

Salman Iqbal, the CEO of ARY, also recently spoke about a wider home for Urdu content and publicly invited rival networks to participate. His vision for a unified Urdu streaming platform deserves attention but metrics such as the number of downloads, viewing time, and social media buzz can only account for the transactional side of the picture.

What is OTT, anyway?

Over-the-top or OTT television is a digital platform where content is distributed via the internet instead of terrestrial, cable, or satellite networks. By that definition, one can say that Pakistani dramas on YouTube are already OTT. However, streaming is much more than digital distribution. It requires an optimised platform specifically engineered for on-demand viewing.

Most of the recent conversation around ARY Plus has addressed the business and transactional questions surrounding audience migration, advertising revenue, and the value of owning viewer data. Unfortunately, these conversations are missing the mark on the creative and technical aspect: are Pakistani dramas being made to the same standards expected of the shows competing in a global streaming catalogue or are broadcasters placing conventional television inside a new container?

Are Pakistani screenplays OTT ready?

The first test facing Pakistani content is the screenplay. So far, the industry has been successful in conflating storytellers, screenwriters, and dialogue writers into one role. A story determines what happens, whereas a screenplay dictates how it unfolds visually on screen.

Traditionally, Pakistani dramas have remained overly reliant on conversations to explain emotions and plot developments. Commercial success, reinforced by weekly broadcast schedules and ad breaks, has become a creative limitation in screenwriting. This also points to the shortcomings of channels in hiring professionals capable of translating brilliant stories into greater screenplays.

Viewing behaviour on a streaming platform is vastly different. Instead of waiting for weekly episodes, users can watch several episodes consecutively, and this is where the slow pacing and talkative approach may not work, as the content may appear repetitive across multiple episodes and the audience can abandon a series within minutes.

This does not mean every show must follow the breakneck pacing of a Netflix production — a slow burn can be extremely engaging when silence, behaviour, and atmosphere reveal something new. To thrive on streaming, Pakistani dramas will need to be treated as disciplined and controlled projects, conceived as limited series — where the depth of a story determines its length, rather than inherited television slots that force channels to stretch a 10-episode conflict across 30.

Is the visual execution OTT-ready?

Traditionally, Pakistani drama’s visual execution has felt flat and static. It has followed a familiar template: a static camera moves between wide shots, medium shots, and close-ups, with limited to no movement within a scene. Global streaming content stands out because the camera movements are purposeful. They reveal characters, direct attention, or change the emotional pressure of a scene rather than acting as a tool to record conversations from a fixed position.

Recently, Dar-e-Nijaat attempted to break that pattern. It experimented with dolly zooms — where the camera pulls back while zooming in to create a disorienting effect — and low-angle body-mounted shots. Together, these effects let the viewers in on the character’s psychological and emotional state. This is a welcome shift in cinematography, but these shots are very few and far between with the serial mainly falling back to static conversational scenes.

Similarly, colour grading — which includes adjusting the colour of a shot, its contrast and tone — needs to be used as a critical storytelling tool to maximise the intended impact. Both HUM TV’s Zanjeerain and Netflix’s Kohrra (2025) rely heavily on their locations, but each uses them differently.

While Zanjeerain’s cinematography lets us in on the scale and rugged beauty of the mountainous setting, its colour grading does not always transform the landscape into the drama’s emotional tension.

In contrast, Kohrra’s depiction of rural Punjab in India through muted earth tones, a washed-out grey-blue palette and persistent haze makes it feel cold, dense, and morally obscured, a visual ambition yet to be matched by Pakistani drama. The atmosphere it creates carries the same grief and conflict as the characters. This is the power of colour grading. It not only establishes where the story is taking place but also tells us how the world feels, elevating an environment from just scenery to a dramatic force.

Pakistani drama enjoys a reach far beyond Urdu-speaking audiences. It has a loyal fan following across the Gulf, Britain, Australia, and North America. Therefore, production and creative teams must explore ways of reaching non-Urdu-speaking audiences authentically.

That means using accurate subtitles and dubbing rather than translating Urdu dialogue word for word. These subtitle and dubbing assets must be planned during production — a popular on-air drama that skips this step will incur extra costs for redoing subtitles and dubbing later, and in many cases, this simply cannot be done at all.

Can ARY Plus retain viewers and achieve scale?

ARY’s decision to restrict access to its premium dramas on YouTube could backfire. On one hand, it is keeping the dramas free on YouTube internationally, which brings in global advertising revenue and pulls in new audiences outside Pakistan. On the other, domestic viewers will be directed to ARY Plus, giving ARY greater control over local advertising, distribution, and user data.

It will also divide viewers across two platforms. After all, it was YouTube that gave Pakistani dramas the massive following they enjoy today, which is exactly what ARY now risks cutting into.

The real test for ARY Plus is whether it can hold on to local advertising control without driving away the very viewers that YouTube built for Pakistani drama.

But even if ARY solves the distribution problem, it needs to give the viewers a good enough reason to return – and any future paid offering would need to earn its price.

What will make Pakistani drama truly OTT-ready?

The industry has it all — exceptional artists, recognisable story writers, emotionally directed storytelling, and an unmatched understanding of family dynamics, class aspirations, and social reputation. These stories resonate with millions across the globe because their emotions are universal, even when they are unmistakably Pakistani.

The channel leadership must build an ecosystem to further promote talent. They will need to stop relying on television libraries and start commissioning quality-controlled and professionally localised projects built for streaming to compete with global streaming platforms. They will also need to be forthcoming in credibly reporting viewer retention, not just download counts.

YouTube has over the years proven a genuine demand for Pakistani drama. You don’t need to understand Urdu or live in Pakistan to get hooked on a story about love, family, and sacrifice — billions of views prove that. But one mustn’t assume that “views are subscriptions” — they are both very different commitments.

Watching something for free costs nothing; paying for it means the content must be good enough that people choose it over everything else competing for the same rupee.

ARY is moving its dramas behind the walls of its own app for viewers in Pakistan. The real test is whether they’ll follow. Will the app give them a reason to keep coming back? Will they ever be ready to pay for the content? And will the industry finally start making shows worth paying for?

The tour’s promoters — who Sheeran credited with making the decision to boot Macklemore — announced in an update on Instagram that his shows at the Gillette Stadium near Boston will be cancelled “due to severe weather warnings”.

They said the decision was made with the safety of “fans, staff and everyone involved with the shows as the top priority”.

This is just the latest in a series of setbacks for Sheeran, who has been in the news ever since Macklemore — who was opening for the singer — used his concert stage to call for a “free Palestine”.

While the crowd cheered the rapper on, some pro-Israel groups called for action against him. The action came when Macklemore was taken out from the rest of the tour at the insistence of venue owners who refused to let Sheeran’s shows proceed otherwise.

Among those venue owners was Robert Kraft, the pro-Israel businessman described by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “friend” of the country. It was his venue in Massachusetts that was impacted by the concert cancellations.

Earlier, all of Sheeran’s supporting acts walked out of the tour in solidarity with Macklemore, including the tour’s live band, as the singer scrambled to defend his decision and make a statement that could please both sides — it did not.

The rapper has since announced he will be donating the $1 million he earned on Sheeran’s tour to organisations working in Palestine and called on Kraft to match his pledge.

This was met by the singer and the businessman announcing they’d be donating $2m each to “aid in the region”. Macklemore’s appeal was answered by children’s entertainer Ms Rachel, who matched his donation with $1m to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund.

Macklemore is now preparing to continue his contribution with his Free Palestine tour. He announced shows in Dublin, London and Paris on Thursday, saying all proceeds will go to Palestinian organisations.

Meanwhile in Palestine, Israel continues killing Palestinians in Gaza, with the death toll from the brutal war on the territory sitting at 73,928. Israeli military action has also led to over 175,000 injuries as per the health ministry in Gaza.

This decision “is driven by the desire to preserve the integrity of the prix Goncourt and the Academy itself, whose central role is to promote and honour literature written by women and men,” the Goncourt Academy said.

The decision to remove the book by Thelyson Orelien, a new literary sensation in the French-speaking world, caps a tumultuous week for the 38-year-old following anonymous claims against his debut novel It Was Either That or Die.

He has denied using AI and has suggested the campaign against him is racially motivated as well as an “attempt to silence my voice.” He also has promised to produce a file that will “prove” that he wrote the book himself.

The Goncourt claimed that “several credible researchers and journalists” had highlighted his prize-winning work was “in all likelihood very largely the product of artificial intelligence”. His use of AI is difficult to prove conclusively — various AI detectors give different results — but his reputation has been undercut by evidence of plagiarism published in Quebec where Orelien lives.

Montreal-based La Presse reported that a newspaper column written by him in 2013 was “almost entirely” a “lightly edited translation” of an article published a few days earlier by The Philippine Star.

Originally published in Dawn, September 26th, 2026

The festival, which is the only South Asian festival where winning can qualify a film for Oscar consideration, has a lineup of 136 titles, including 21 features.

The festival announced Lali’s opening night screening on its Instagram page on Thursday.

The film will be screened on October 15 at 6pm local time at the Tasveer Film Centre. The show will be preceded by a red carpet walk and the cast and crew will host a session with the audience after the credits roll.

There also be a gala dinner with live music and a DJ.

For those unfamiliar, Lali revolves around Zeba (played by Mamya Shajaffar), a young woman who gains the label of as a “cursed bride” after three of her previous suitors die under mysterious circumstances.

Lali “examines the fear, shame, and violence that lie beneath intimate relationships,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. “With a keen eye for human complexity, it seeks to confront and release the suppressed forces that continue to suffocate many unions.”

In addition to Shajaffar, Lali boasts an ensemble cast, featuring Joyland’s Rasti Farooq and Churails star Meher Bano. The film’s score has been composed by Abdullah Siddiqui.

The film is joined at Tasveer by Habiba Nousheen’s documentary The Gymnasts of Fisherman Colony and five short films from Pakistani filmmakers — Farqalit Gharshin’s Tsrak, Kamran Faiq’s The Last Glance, Basir Ahmed’s Khazana, Ali Mehdi’s Shireen and Ravia Rasool’s Silence on Set.

Pakistan has had an impressive record at past editions of the Tasveer Film Festival, with Wakhri opening its 2024 edition alongside an Indian title.

In 2019, Ahmed Ali Akbar’s Laal Kabootar took home the festival’s Archana Soy Audience Choice Award for Best Feature Film.

The move highlights the challenge facing Gucci designer Demna, who must create innovative products while keeping costs under control to attract so-called aspirational shoppers, the bulk of luxury consumers who are more price-sensitive than the super-rich.

Demna will present his latest collection at a Milan runway show on Friday. His success is crucial for parent Kering and CEO Luca de Meo, who took over last year to lead a turnaround but has seen an early share price bounce fall flat this year.

Gucci, Kering’s flagship brand, has seen sales halve over the past three years, squeezing margins and forcing the group to close dozens of stores.

In a move reminiscent of his tenure at Balenciaga, Demna has created a futuristic sneaker model called Drip. The shoe is labelled as ‘Made in China’, according to Gucci’s website. Reuters also observed Drip models displayed in a Gucci store in Paris carrying the same label.

In a statement, Gucci said that Italy would “always be at the heart of Gucci’s manufacturing model and identity” but that it had decided to work with the Chinese manufacturer just as it had worked with Swiss and Japanese suppliers for products like watches and eyewear in the past.

“The partner selected offered the technological know-how and capabilities most appropriate for achieving the performance and quality standards we were seeking,” it added.

There were no broader plans to move Gucci production outside Italy, a Gucci spokesperson said.

Demna’s first sneaker for Gucci

The Drip sneaker, described on Gucci’s website as “Demna’s first sneaker for Gucci”, went on sale last month as part of the designer’s ‘Primavera’ collection.

Retailing at around €800 in Europe and $1,000 in the United States, it is cheaper than many other Gucci shoes, though still firmly in the luxury category. The laceless design is made from nylon, canvas or suede.

The Drip is a break from Gucci’s more traditional white leather laced Ace sneakers, and its sock-like shape is reminiscent of Demna’s chunky sneaker designs at Balenciaga which were a streetwear hit in the late 2010s.

A second slip-on sneaker model, made of leather, from the same ‘Primavera’ collection is also labelled as ‘Made in China’, the Gucci website shows. The brand spokesperson said that model was produced in China for similar technical reasons linked to the shoe’s design.

All other Gucci shoes carrying a country-of-origin label on the website are made in Italy.

China is a global hub for sneaker production and its manufacturers have earned strong reputations among mass-market and premium brands. Some analysts say that in Gucci’s case, however, breaking with ‘Made in Italy’ could spark a backlash.

“We think this creates a potential tension between provenance and the luxury positioning Gucci is seeking to reclaim,” Berenberg analysts said in a note.

Simon Whitehouse, a Milan-based luxury business consultant, was more blunt. “‘Made in China’ is not a good look,” he said.

Two Kering sources told Reuters the brand has also begun cutting prices on a select number of products, including in China, as part of efforts to regain market share.

Barclays analyst Carole Madjo said the price cuts surprised some investors, who are now paying increased attention to any further moves that could affect Gucci’s image with shoppers.

“Some people are wondering: should we keep buying Gucci if the price is coming down?” she said. “Having Chinese-made products could fuel the debate around the brand’s price value equation.”

Adnan had been invited on the show co-hosted by Zohaib Hassan in recognition of a remarkable achievement: she closed Flying Solo’s show during New York Fashion Week (NYFW) this month with her collection, Second Skin.

For those unaware, Flying Solo is one of the largest independent designer platforms held during NYFW, and her eponymous label Parishae was chosen to close it. It’s a major achievement, especially for a young Pakistani woman. There was so much the audience could have learned from Parishae’s experience.

But instead, Khan steered the conversation towards videos Parishae makes at the gym and the clothes she wears in those videos, creating a rather uncomfortable situation. With a straight face, Khan asked this accomplished woman how her parents ‘allowed’ her to dress that way — as though a woman who is the CEO of a major designer brand is supposed to require parental permission to wear activewear.

“Tell me, being in this society, the videos you make in the gym and the clothes you are wearing there, there must be a great deal of criticism. Didn’t your parents get upset at what you were doing?” Khan asked.

Despite the glaring absurdity of the question, Parishae answered calmly: “I think safety is a concern. But other than that, I’ll tell you the reason that wakes me up and takes me to the gym, the reason why I wake up in the morning and go to the gym, is that when I get messages in my inbox from all those girls, women, even men, who see something and get inspired and start their strength and self-training journey, for me, that’s a big thing.”

Here’s the thing: Parishae isn’t just a designer with a famous surname (she is the daughter of Amir Adnan and Huma Adnan, arguably some of the biggest names in Pakistan’s fashion industry). She doesn’t just run an established luxury designer brand, she has helped reinvent it. She has built her own reputation on sustainability, crafting Second Skin entirely from scratch.

So, while interviewing Parishae, Khan could’ve asked a variety of important questions. It was an amazing opportunity to help Pakistani audiences learn how difficult sustainable fashion is, what it takes to bring South Asian craftsmanship to NYFW and how Parishae was able to do all that on her own.

Shortly after the interview aired, she posted an Instagram video containing clips of her reactions to Khan’s line of questioning with a laughing emoji.

Her mother, Huma, replied to the video, saying the questions were ‘uncalled for’.

Actor Anika Zulfiqar called out Khan as well: “Maybe do some research on your guests before the show?”

She noted there was so much inspiration and insight Adnan could have shared, but instead the host went with “basic judgy aunty questions”.

That phrase lands hard because it’s accurate. This wasn’t an interview — it came across as a tribunal and the charge was a woman’s appearance.

Zulfiqar added: “The world has moved on and you’re still stuck where you were. Sad.”

She’s right. In 2026, a morning show built for women, co-hosted by a woman, looked at a woman who had just conquered a global runway and decided her gym clothes were the story. Not the collection. Not the craft. Not the moment.

Parishae’s composure won, though. She didn’t give the hosts the reaction they were fishing for and afterwards, she thanked those who spoke up for her. We love the video she shared of her reactions though, because at the end of the day, sometimes you’ve got to give people a few weirded out looks and go on with your day.

The real shame isn’t the question. It’s that a remarkable achievement became background noise to a tired, predictable obsession with what a woman was wearing while she achieved it. We’re not surprised this came from Nadia Khan, we’re just tired of it.

Macklemore, who was opening for Sheeran’s Loop Tour, shouted “Free Palestine!” and told Palestinians they were “not forgotten” during two concerts earlier this month in New Jersey.

The ‘Thrift Shop’ star was quickly booted from the US tour — a decision that Sheeran said was made by tour promoters, not him — provoking outrage among musicians and pro-Palestinian activists.

“What happened to me is bigger than one artist or one stage,” Macklemore, 43, said in an Instagram post.

“When the billionaire class can decide which voices are allowed on stage and which ones are too dangerous to hear, everyone should be paying attention,” he added.

Macklemore announced three shows in London, Paris and Dublin for late October, with US dates also planned, and said all proceeds will benefit pro-Palestinian organisations.

“It’s 2026. Being apolitical during a genocide doesn’t work anymore,” he said.

“People are asking artists to show up, educate themselves and be in community. To use the stage for more than entertainment. To push back when the call for a Free Palestine is met with attempts to silence it.”

Macklemore’s removal has opened a can of worms for the Grammy-winning Sheeran, who has typically steered clear of making any overt political statements.

But last weekend at a show in Philadelphia, he broke his silence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by describing the situation in Gaza as “catastrophic and unjustifiable and disproportionate”.

“I’ve had to take and make difficult decisions, and I am making mistakes, and I’m so, so sorry,” an emotional Sheeran told his audience, who responded with cheers.

Four other supporting artists, including American singer Finneas, have also pulled out of Sheeran’s tour in solidarity with Macklemore.

The chilling new documentary by Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor highlights Israel’s AI-powered mass killing of civilians in Gaza. In the film, Abraham and Szor used conversations with 24 different Israeli military or intelligence whistleblowers who spoke on condition that their identities be protected. “We are letting the soldiers and the officers speak about what they did,” Abraham said.

“After its run in cinemas, the film will stream on The Guardian’s website, for free, as part of the news organisation’s commitment to the dissemination of independent journalism,” the British publication reported on Thursday.

“NAZA is grounded in rigorous journalism published over the past three years,” said Harry Davies, an investigations correspondent at The Guardian and one of the producers of NAZA. “But it is also a powerful piece of cinema that will soon be available on screens, large and small, around the world,” he added.

NAZA made headlines earlier this month after its filmmakers received a 25-minute ovation at its Venice Film Festival premiere.

The documentary prompted backlash in Israel, including from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who even went as far announcing that his government will seek legislation to revoke the citizenship of anybody seeking to slander or defame Israeli soldiers or the state.

“The first, to revoke ​the citizenship of anyone who defames [Israeli] soldiers, and the second to hit them in their pockets and ​increase the statutory damages for defamation they can be sued for by 20 times,” Netanyahu said in a video posted on the internet.

“We ⁠will hit them both in their pockets and in their citizenship, as their place is not with us,” he added.

NAZA draws its name from a euphemism used by Israeli intelligence to indicate the number of civilians that are expected to be killed in an airstrike. It was described as an “urgent, gut-punch” by film magazine Screen, while The Hollywood Reporter said it inspired “outrage…indignity as well. Most certainly disgust, on a profound level, for the current Israeli regime”.

Well, we got an answer from Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions on Wednesday. Brace yourselves for the trailer of Udta Teer, a ‘comedy’ that leans into stereotypes and jokes so ridiculous, it’s difficult to imagine someone actually sat down and green-lit this project.

The trailer of Bollywood’s umpteenth Pakistan-obsessed film starts with a narrator telling the audience that India keeps sending spies to Pakistan, but the Pakistanis have finally found the ultimate answer to their adversary’s antics: Bilal Ahmed, played by Ayushmann Khurrana.

The trailer makes it clear that Bilal is, for all intents and purposes, the Pakistani equivalent of Dhurandhar’s Jaskirat Singh Rangi. He’s seen dodging bullets, leaping from explosions and walking through a military installation like he owns the place.

The narrator is quick to point out, “Our guy is no ordinary spy. He’s got passion in his heart, a fire in his eyes and just one cry on his mind…” The scene then cuts to Bilal waving an Indian flag and chanting “Bharat Mata Ki Jai (Glory to Mother India).”

Okay, now if we gave Bollywood the benefit of the doubt and stopped watching here, it would be reasonable to assume he’s simply undercover and trying to blend in… but it gets worse.

Turns out Bilal, if we can even call him that anymore, got hit in the head while leaping from yet another explosion and lost his memory. So, naturally, the Indians nursed him back to health, convinced him he was an Indian with a tragic, anti-Pakistan backstory and gave him a job in a counter terrorism unit — which raises less questions about Pakistan and more about who the Indians would let onto a counterterrorism team.

Of course, Bilal only forgot his nationality and his entire life story — his martial arts skills are as good as ever and he fits right in. The double agent — if he even counts as one — starts dropping ‘terrorists’ left and right until he comes to the realisation that they are led by a shadowy figure named Bilal Ahmed.

If that makes you want to shake some sense into the guys, we are glad to report that his Indian colleagues tried, they even told him he was Bilal, but the man is just in too deep.

To add to all this, there’s the apparent primary villain, a portly caricature of a terrorist with a terrible accent who needs to get himself in shape — and from one scene where he’s on an app called “Hinder”, find himself a Mrs Terrorist. Obviously, he speaks with the hardened kh sounds and a surplus of janaabs that are a staple of Muslim (mis)representation in Indian cinema.

The rest of the trailer is your usual Indian spy movie stuff, more gunshots, more explosions, some angry members of Pakistan’s top brass and, of course, romance shots up in the mountains.

Judging by the trailer, Bollywood seems to have lost the plot entirely. We get that jingoism and propaganda is selling out Indian theatres and that Bollywood comedies aren’t in a great place right now, but this is ridiculous.

In fact, it’s not just ridiculous, it’s harmful. Where art is supposed to bring people together, this film seems to aspire to create a twisted version of the Two Minutes Hate from George Orwell’s 1984 where, the audience is in hysterics instead of visible rage. The hysterics, of course, are socially mandated just like in the rage in the book.

We don’t know yet if Udta Teer will be a commercial success when it comes out next month — and we hope audiences have the good sense not to go watch it in theatres — but it is indicative of long-term societal problems.

The fact that a movie so ridiculous with some rather obvious hate for India’s largest religious minority is allowed to go to production, much less screen in theatres, shows that Bollywood’s propaganda machine has already done some serious damage.

In recent years, Pakistani dramas have given us glimpses into infidelity — not as scandals but as windows into the human psyche. From the sugar daddy in Bismil and the religious hypocrite in Aap Ki Izzat to the rare portrayal of a female cheating spouse in Mere Pass Tum Ho and the transactional marriage in a sub-plot of Kabhi Main Kabhi Tum, these dramas expose their characters’ flaws, emotional voids and psychological wounds that drive them to betray their partners.

They invite us to look beneath the surface and ask what compels someone to betray the person they once vowed to cherish. They reveal the anatomy of a choice.

Bismil: the sugar daddy and the gold digger

Tauqeer Taseer (Noman Ejaz) possesses everything a man is supposed to desire: a loyal wife, Reham (Savera Nadeem), a son about to get married and a successful business he has built over decades. Yet, he lacks something less tangible: a sense of his own significance. That emptiness, more than anything else, pushes him towards Masooma (Hareem Farooq), his wife’s employee — and this ultimately proves to be his undoing.

This ‘Sugar Daddy’ dynamic is rarely just about sex. It is about power, the need to feel chosen, desired and necessary. Masooma offers TT a mirror where he sees the version of himself he misses: a young man with options. She, however, is not attracted to him but to his wealth and what it can provide.

From mid-life crises and material ambition to secret marriages, Pakistani dramas often explore the wounds, desires and self-deceptions behind infidelity. A mental health professional examines through four dramas what they tell us… and what they don’t

The ‘Gold Digger’ is not born. She is taught to see marriage as a route to security and status in a culture that equates a woman’s worth with the status of the man she marries and this leaves her with few other options.

TT’s error is not desire but believing boredom justifies destruction. He had other paths: conversation, counselling and even divorce. Instead, he chooses concealment. The ideal family he spent decades building becomes collateral damage.

Aap Ki Izzat: the secret nikaah and the woman who rebels

In public, Tabish (Ahsan Khan) champions women’s rights. In private, he gaslights his wife Beena (Urwa Hocane) and decides to marry his secretary, Naaz (Alina Khan), as he feels that Naaz is more socially fit and useful for his new political career.

What makes Beena’s story even more devastating is not that she was betrayed but that she is asked to absorb it silently. Her mother tells her to be grateful. Her best friend tells her to forgive and adjust. Fourteen years of devotion become the argument — she has given so much to the marriage and shouldn’t throw it away. This is the cruel arithmetic of a society that measures a woman’s life in years served rather than dignity retained.

Beena makes a choice that may defy morality and logic but makes psychological sense. She does not leave conventionally or seek khulaa (a divorce initiated by the wife). She runs away with her sabzi wala, a vegetable vendor with neither status, wealth nor promise.

It is easy to dismiss this as madness. But look closer: it is the act of a woman famished for recognition. A stranger gazed at her as if she mattered. He offered nothing but acknowledgement. For Beena, that was more precious than the home she abandoned. Beena had permissible paths like khulaa but knew she would only be advised to stay grateful and quiet. So she chose the only exit she could think of.

Kabhi Main Kabhi Tum: the transaction

Adeel (Emmad Irfani) is set to marry Sharjeena (Hania Aamir). When his super-rich boss, Rubab (Naeema Butt), hears about it, she proposes to him. They tie the knot as Adeel realises Rubab can provide financial benefits Sharjeena can’t.

Adeel believes love can be traded for a better life. Rubab believes love can be acquired and purchased like a desirable object but, to be fair to her, she does love Adeel. However, neither views intimacy as a meeting of equals, because neither was taught what that looks like.

Their marriage is therefore a merger, not a union. Mergers collapse when the assets fail to perform. Trapped in a life built on appearances, Adeel manipulates Rubab’s business accounts and begins an affair with her best friend, Natasha (Areej Chaudhary).

Natasha is cast as the home-wrecker but is the story’s most tragic figure. She too married for money and found her life empty. Rather than confronting this, she tries to fill the void by reaching out for another woman’s husband. She does not love Adeel — she loves the idea of a life she never dared claim.

Natasha and Adeel are two people who chose security over integrity and find each other, not through passion, but through recognition. They are not lovers. They reflect the same despair.

Mere Pass Tum Ho: glitter over gold

Danish (Humayun Saeed) and Mehwish (Ayeza Khan) have been married for several years and have a young son. While Danish is irrevocably and madly in love with Mehwish, she is not — and therefore chooses to betray Danish when Sheharyar (Adnan Siddiqui) enters their lives.

Mehwish’s betrayal is not fuelled by passion but by her hunger for wealth, status and the life she believes she deserves. Danish may offer her love and steadiness, but Sheharyar offers money and excitement. Her calculations reflect the twisted reasoning of someone who learned to measure a woman’s fulfilment in material terms because of the society she lives in. She has never learned that love itself can be a form of wealth.

Sheharyar’s cowardice is the drama’s real revelation. He offers Mehwish no protection, no commitment and has no courage. The story doesn’t punish her for being a woman. It is punishing her for choosing a man whose wealth always outweighed his integrity.

However, a double standard is exposed. Audiences judged Mehwish more harshly than TT, Tabish or Adeel ever were. Why? Because society still expects women to be the guardians of marital honour while men’s failings are brushed aside and excused.

The psychology of betrayal

What causes infidelity? It’s rarely the physical aspect.

• The Hunger for Validation: The cheating spouse is sometimes propelled by an anxious craving for validation or a deep urge to flee intimacy and difficult conversations. Tabish clings to Naaz because his ego withers without praise. TT seeks Masooma to outrun time. Adeel chases an ego lift. Mehwish hungers for flattery and fortune. None of them is searching for true love. They all seek relief from something they can’t name or don’t have.

• When Youth Slips Away: As people get older, many confront a burning question: is this all there is to life? This is not a moral failing but a transition. Handled correctly, it can produce renewed purpose. If not, it can, among other things, produce extramarital affairs — an attempt to recapture youth, overcome performance anxiety, escape from difficult conversations about intimacy, or gain an improved self-image through someone else’s eyes.

• When Money Replaces Meaning: In most dramas, the affair is tied to money. That is because wealth is viewed as the ultimate yardstick to gauge self-worth and the spark for betrayal. When money reigns supreme, love becomes irrelevant.

• The Illusion of an Upgrade: Every cheating spouse imagines they are stepping toward something better. In truth, they are only fleeing what feels unbearable. They forget running away is not the same as finding a new refuge.

• Filling the Void Within: The betrayer doesn’t commit a crime of passion. Instead, they try to fill the void in their lives by cheating on their spouses. Many times, they carry self-loathing and shame and try to escape them. However, the emptiness in their lives does not leave. It deepens.

What dramas miss out on when exploring infidelity

For all their layers, these dramas leave crucial ground unexplored. What remains unsaid shapes what we cannot understand.

• The Work Behind Rebuilding Tr­u­st: For couples who stay together, rebuilding trust and redeveloping genuine intimacy are essential, be it by holding hands or resting their head on their spouse’s shoulder as a sign of trust. In reality, neither happens quickly. Healing is slow and trust is the hardest to reclaim. Dramas skip this part. Either the marriage ends or the wounds heal overnight magically.

• Male Mental Health: Depression in men often presents itself not as sadness but as irritability, risk-taking, detachment and, sometimes, infidelity. TT’s boredom, Adeel’s restlessness, Tabish’s hunger for admiration and Sheharyar’s narcissism may be symptoms of depression no one identifies or talks about. Men in dramas rarely examine the invalidation, distress, insecurity or dissatisfaction driving their behaviour. Dramas never show men being raised to seek help. Instead, many avoid difficult emotions, externalise distress, or seek validation elsewhere.

• Escaping Economic Entra­pm­e­nts: Many dramas show women staying in unfaithful marriages because they cannot afford to leave. Financial dependence is a powerful constraint but should not become a narrative dead-end. Women who lack financial independence can find ways to leave, seek support from family or community, pursue khulaa or rebuild their lives on their own terms. Dramas rarely explore these possibilities. Instead, financial dependence is often treated as if it automatically means a woman has no choice. Reham and Rubab, by contrast, have the financial freedom to walk away, but their stories raise a larger question: what choices are available to women without that freedom?

• The Absence of Therapy: Not one character sees a therapist or a couple’s counsellor, despite being urbane, ‘upper class’ and educated for the most part. This is the most glaring omission of all in many dramas, although they are increasingly focusing on ‘racy’ themes. Exploring one’s inner world through therapy can give meaning to behaviour. The trauma, often hiding in one’s unconscious from their earlier years, memories, regrets, unmet needs and deprivations, can shape adult behaviour unless examined, processed, resolved and healed. And that’s exactly what therapy aims to do.

• The Impact on Spouses…: The betrayed spouse is not just heartbroken. For some, the experience can be destabilising and may produce trauma-like symptoms. Shame can convince them that, if they were enough, their partner would not have strayed. Identity erosion can unsettle the person they thought they were. Sleep, appetite, concentration and a sense of safety can all be affected. Research suggests that infidelity can produce clinically significant post-traumatic stress symptoms in some people, although the severity and duration vary. For men, the social pressure can be even bleaker. They are expected to swallow pain, not process it. When they speak, they risk mockery or dismissal. This silence becomes its own private hell.

• …and the Estranged Couple’s Children: We often forget the children. But they are always watching. Young children cannot grasp infidelity, but they feel the tension between their parents. They internalise the anxiety as their own. Their sense of safety — the foundational belief that home is a secure base — can be shattered. Older children bear different scars. They understand too much and anger, betrayal and confusion swirl within them. Respect for the cheating parent may vanish. Their own relationships can also become battlegrounds, haunted by the fear of repeating their parents’ cycle. Infidelity can even become an intergenerational wound — a blueprint for dysfunction that is passed down the line.

The takeaway: the case file is still open

These dramas don’t pretend that marriage is easy and nor do they claim every union should be saved. Instead, they whisper a harder truth: your character is revealed not by what you desire, but by what you do with that longing.

They also reveal that betrayal is seldom sudden. It starts with self-justification: the belief that one deserves more, that marriage is a barrier, that someone else can restore what is missing, or that consequences can be postponed. By the time the affair surfaces, the psychological groundwork has already been laid.

TT seeks to feel significant again and reclaim his youth. Tabish wants validation and the freedom to construct a new life without having to confront the damage he has done to his previous one. Mehwish mistakes material security for fulfilment and thinks she is securing her future. Adeel treats marriage as an economic calculation and cheating as an ego boost. Beneath these differences, however, the mechanism is remarkably similar: internal dissatisfaction becomes a reason to violate an external commitment.

Each character had choices — honesty, confrontation, separation, counselling, khulaa or acknowledging the hard truth that desire does not equal entitlement. However, what they actually did was perform surgery on themselves — and cut out the wrong organ. They removed loyalty, integrity and self-respect and kept the tumour of their own unmet needs. Then they wondered why they were still bleeding.

Perhaps more importantly, what is not examined is that cheating is not always the disease. It can be a symptom. The disease is the wound beneath it, caused by myriad reasons: an ego that cannot tolerate ageing, a hunger that cannot be satisfied, an emptiness no amount of money, admiration, or new people can fill.

These reasons do not excuse betrayal. To understand is not to absolve. In fact, understanding makes responsibility and reality harder to escape from.

These dramas might tempt us into judging who was right and who was wrong. But the deeper question is: how do people arrive at a place where doing the wrong thing seems like the only option left?

And once the damage has been done, how can it ever be repaired, both for the person who caused it and the people who had no choice but to bear the weight of the betrayal and live with its repercussions?

Originally published in Dawn, ICON, September 20th, 2026

The track first came out in 2022 as part of Coke Studio Season 14. It features vocals by Hasan Raheem and Justin Bibis along with electro-pop beats by Talal Qureshi.

Xulfi, who led the project, expressed his happiness over seeing the song reach listeners around the world.

“Representation is what puts us on the global map of everything. It might just look like a soundtrack in a movie, but music has the power to set the narrative and tell the world about who we are, where we come from, where we have reached and what we stand for. ‘Peechay Hutt’ in a Hollywood movie is part of that revolution,” wrote Xulfi.

The exciting news comes shortly after another historic win for the producer. Coke Studio’s ‘Pasoori’, which he also curated and produced, recently became the first Pakistani-made music video to reach one billion views on YouTube.

Now that ‘Peechay Hutt’ is on Netflix, it will reach millions of subscribers. The song’s music video, at the time of this article’s publication, already has over 28 million views on YouTube.

The Best of the Best soundtrack also includes major international artists such as BLACKPINK, Hanumankind and AR Rahman. This makes the inclusion of ‘Peechay Hutt’ all the more meaningful.

The song’s famous demand to ‘make way’ now means something different: Pakistani music is moving forward — and the world is making room.

Best of the Best is a coming-of-age story directed by Lena Khan and co-written by Hasan Minhaj and Prashanth Venkataramanujam. The plot revolves around childhood best friends Maya (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) and Anjali (Priyanka Kedia) as they join their university’s competitive Bollywood-fusion dance team and set their sights on the US championship. It’s a story about friendship and celebrating South Asian culture on a global stage.

The film, however, recently found itself in hot water over a joke in which Maya tells a girl “guys throw themselves at you like you’re the last plane out of Kabul” — a line critics say makes light of the trauma of the 2021 US evacuation of Kabul.